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Senior Projects Spring 2016 Bard Undergraduate Senior Projects
Spring 2016
The History and Democratization of Men's Lacrosse
Samuel Woodward Funnell Bard College, [email protected]
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Recommended Citation Funnell, Samuel Woodward, "The History and Democratization of Men's Lacrosse" (2016). Senior Projects Spring 2016. 258. https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2016/258
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The History and Democratization of Men’s Lacrosse
Senior Project Submitted to the Division of Multidisciplinary Studies of Bard College
by
Sam Funnell
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York May 2016
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I could not possibly have completed this project if it were not for the help and support of my family and friends. In addition, I would like to particularly thank my academic advisor, Myra Armstead, for putting up with me and not giving up on this project; Maddie Nye for actually making me work; Timand Bates for giving me academic guidance and advice throughout my time at Bard; and my parents for allowing me to attend Bard and for always being there when I needed help. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: History of Lacrosse 6
Chapter 2: Growth of the Game 24
Chapter 3: Barriers to the Growth of Lacrosse 48
Chapter 4: The Issue of Race in Lacrosse 58
Conclusion 80
Bibliography 82
Appendix 88 Introduction
As I began to think about what I wanted to do for my senior project, I contemplated the things that matter most to me, what my passions are. I toyed with a few different ideas, but I found that I kept procrastinating by reading articles about lacrosse. I would not say that I am obsessed with the sport, but I imagine some of the people around me might very well think so. Looking back, I am not sure why it was not more obvious that my project should be centered around the sport that I love. I have played lacrosse for years but had not thought much about the history and trajectory of the sport. Since I had the chance to help out at a showcase for the Harlem Lacrosse and Leadership foundation this past summer, however, I have been very interested in the growth of lacrosse to this point and the potential for what the sport can become.
Growing up, I played many different sports: soccer, hockey, lacrosse, baseball, football, tennis, golf, skiing and even a few games of high school basketball.
I played each for a reason and learned important lessons from each. However out of all of these sports, lacrosse holds a special place in my heart.
I cannot remember the first time I picked up a lacrosse stick. What I do know is it was not long after I learned to walk and that it was likely handed to me by my dad. My dad grew up in a small town in northwestern Connecticut back when there were no youth lacrosse programs in the area. He got his first taste for the game playing with sticks borrowed from friends’ older siblings at recess before first playing on a team in ninth grade. He went on to play all four years of high school and 2 for one season in college. Not long after they were married, my dad tried to teach my mom how to play lacrosse. To say that this experiment did not go very well would be a drastic understatement. My dad bought her a stick and they went to the park; the first pass he threw her glanced off her stick and hit my mom in the face. My dad swears that she has never picked up a lacrosse stick since then; that was more than twenty-five years ago.
Despite this experience, he still wanted to teach the sport he loved to my brother and me. When my brother and I were little, my dad was coaching lacrosse at a prep school in New Hampshire. As a result, we grew up going to practices and games with him and his team until we were old enough to play on teams ourselves. I can still fondly remember travelling on the bus with the team the last weekend of every season for the big rivalry game, feeling the excitement and passion even though I was not playing. The pride in winning, and sometimes the disappointment of losing, were things that we were exposed to at a young age.
As I’ve grown older, my relationship to the sport of lacrosse has evolved and taken many different forms. As a child, I enjoyed lacrosse, but ice hockey was my first love. My mom still likes to talk about an assignment I wrote in elementary school about why I liked skating: I wrote that it felt like I was flying. I played on travel teams, represented New Hampshire on state select teams, and was lucky enough to have played with a number of players who have gone on to play professionally. It was not until my sophomore year of high school that my priorities in sports began to shift. That spring, I started at a new high school, and lacrosse was what made me feel welcome--like a part of something. Lacrosse gave me confidence 3 and allowed a quiet kid to make great friends. My team that spring went on to win the state championship, and if I had not been hooked before, I certainly was then. I transferred high schools to play at a higher level, I traveled the East Coast attending camps and tournaments in the summer, and I picked a college because of lacrosse.
In my mind, I had made it. I was going to be a Division One lacrosse player just like so many of the players I had grown up watching on the teams my dad coached.
Things do not always go according to plan however. Before I even arrived on campus at my chosen school, I got cold feet and changed my mind. . I decided to go to a different college, one that played in Division Three rather that Division One.
That fall, though, I got hurt and could not practice or play, so I never really felt like I was a part of the team. I did not see eye to eye with the coaches about my injury recovery, so I drifted away from lacrosse. Even though I was not playing, I got the opportunity to begin coaching, an experience that I am extremely grateful for as it made me realize that I missed lacrosse. I made the decision to transfer schools and get a fresh start. This decision led me to Bard. My time here has been rocky, but lacrosse has always been what I have fallen back on. The team has been my support system, and the game my escape. In my time here I have had the honor of being a captain for three seasons, starting every game I played in, and being named to the
Liberty League all-league team. I have had the privilege to learn from some great coaches here at Bard, men who have molded me into who I am today, and who have motivated me to become a better player and person.
I often think about how lucky I am to have had the opportunity to play lacrosse, how grateful I am to my dad for teaching me the game and to my parents 4 for the sacrifices that have allowed me to continue playing. The sport of lacrosse has given me countless memories, taken me to interesting places, given me priceless opportunities, and introduced me to great people. These are all the things lacrosse has given me; this project is my attempt to give something back to the game of lacrosse.
Because the game has meant so much to me, I have been thinking about how to open the game up to more people. I was lucky enough to grow up in an area where lacrosse was popular and where there are youth programs, but in many areas this is not the case. Some of my most rewarding days with the sport of lacrosse have been teaching the game to young players, and these experiences are every bit as valuable as important wins on the field. In many communities, however, there are no players or coaches to introduce lacrosse to young players. Nearly every child in the country has heard of baseball, basketball, and football. On playgrounds, backyards, and streets across America, most of these kids have shot a ball toward a basket, hit a ball with a stick, or yelled “go long” while throwing a football as far as they can. Many of them have never heard of lacrosse, though, and even if they have, they have no opportunity to play.
Every sport faces big challenges. For football it is the growing issue of concussions. For baseball, it is the prevalence of performance enhancing drugs. For lacrosse, I think the challenge is how to change its image and bring the game to more diverse neighborhoods and give kids from every race and socioeconomic background the chance to play. In order to truly grow the game, new demographics need to have access to the sport. My goal with this project is to explore the history of 5 lacrosse in order to provide context for the current state of the sport. In addition, I aim to use data in order to find trends about the growth of lacrosse as well as to find cultural, social and historical explanations for any patterns. This information can be useful in strategizing about the future of the sport.
6
Chapter 1: History of Lacrosse
The history of the sport of lacrosse is interesting as well as complex.
Somehow, a sport that served as a proxy for warfare in some Native American cultures ended up as a rule-ridden white-collar sport played predominantly by affluent East Coast whites. Only in the past few years has the sport begun to open up to a more diverse player base, certainly geographically but also, more slowly, racially and socioeconomically.
Virtually every other sport currently played in the United States had its roots outside of America. In contrast, lacrosse is American, and more specifically, Native
American. It was not created by foreign settlers or modified from some foreign sport, although has been modified from its original form and the name for the sport was coined by French settlers. There is little written history of the game, as Native
American history was largely an oral tradition. However, historians believe that lacrosse has been played in North America for at least nine hundred years.1 The game was played in varying forms by tribes across the eastern portion of what is now the United States, with names varying from Dey Hon Tshi Gwa' Ehs (to bump hips), to Dehuntshigwa’es (men hit a rounded object), to little brother of war.2 Based on historical accounts, it appears as though there were three main versions of the sport: one in the Southeast in which players held a stick in each hand, one in the
Great Lakes region with a wooden stick with a small hollowed out pocket, and one in
1 S.L. Price, "Pride of a Nation," Sports Illustrated, July 19, 2010. 2 Price, “Pride of a Nation”; Thomas Vennum, “The History of Lacrosse,” US Lacrosse, http://www.uslacrosse.org/about-the-sport/history.aspx, accessed April 28, 2016. 7 the Northeast which is the basis for the game played nowadays.3 The version played in the Northeast utilized a wooden stick shaped like a crook with webbing at one end with which to hold the ball.
To the American Indian populations who played ball games such as lacrosse, the games had deep spiritual and community value. The games were far more important than simply winning or losing. For most Native American tribes, their version of a ball game was tied into a holistic view of people, nature, and the
Creator, their god. Lacrosse, like many Native sports, had its “origins in myth,” directly tied to their religion.4 Lacrosse has been described as a “social leveler” and
“spiritual connector,” labels which suggest that the sport emphasized “that everyone was important, no matter how big or small, or how strong or how weak.”5 In the
Iroquois tradition, the game was given to the Native People from god and the People honored their god through playing it. One Mohawk elder explained this connection by saying that “lacrosse was played for the enjoyment of the Great Spirit.”6 Because of this link to the spiritual, games were more than athletic contests and often had deeper meaning for the community. Games were played in order to fulfill community needs, such as healing somebody who had fallen ill or altering the
3 “The History of Lacrosse.” 4 Thomas Vennum, American Indian Lacrosse (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1994), 27. 5 Anthony Aveni, “The Indian Origins of Lacrosse,” Colonial Williamsburg: The Journal of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Winter 2010), http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/winter10/lacrosse.cfm, accessed May 2, 2016. 6 “The Indian Origins of Lacrosse.” 8 weather. According to historian Donald M. Fisher, “the ball game functioned as a cultural stabilizer and reinforced the power of spiritual authorities.”7
In a more practical sense, ball games like lacrosse could be used to build bonds between tribes, settle territorial disputes, as well as to train young men for war. Early in their history, Native American tribes tended to be nomadic hunters and gatherers, roaming the open expanses of North America. Over time, however, this pattern shifted as corn emerged as a viable crop. This resulted in less mobility for Native American populations. As a result of the emergence of agriculture and the resulting mixed economy, Native American settlements became larger and populations more concentrated. Groups that had interacted only infrequently, and often violently, in the past now lived in close proximity to each other. These tribal settlements became more interconnected and, as a solution to avoiding constant war and projecting strength, many tribes formed alliances or confederacies. These alliances “allowed tribes to protect one another’s interests and project their collective might against enemies.”8 One such alliance was the Iroquois Confederacy, which was founded around the beginning of the sixteenth century and consisted of the Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Seneca nations. According to Fisher,
“Playing a ball game facilitated and reinforced these bonds” by bringing tribes together for the playing of games, which were a “creative channeler of aggression” and were made more friendly by the existence of the alliance.9 Territorial disputes could also be settled through the playing of a game with the disputed land being
7 Donald Fisher, Lacrosse: A History of the Game (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 14. 8 Fisher, Lacrosse, 14. 9 Fisher, Lacrosse, 14; “The Indian Origins of Lacrosse” 9 wagered on the result. While this undoubtedly created an especially aggressive or hard-fought game, it still was a more peaceful and diplomatic alternative to war.
Tangentially, the Native American practice of wagering on games of lacrosse has had implications in modern times. Wagering on games is not permitted in amateur sports, and Native Americans have lost their amateur status and been excluded from lacrosse by white players who developed these modern-day rules.
Although ball games like lacrosse were used to resolve disputes and prevent wars, tensions did sometimes spill over and wars were waged amongst Native
American populations. Lacrosse played a role in warfare as well. “The constant running, rough play, and stick skills needed to play the game conditioned men for combat.”10 Therefore, by having young men frequently play games of lacrosse, tribes could stay prepared for war. Being fit enough so as to be prepared for combat was critically important, as war at the time was a “constant threat” to many Native
American tribes.11
Although Native Americans had been playing lacrosse for hundreds of years, no evidence exists of European settlers playing lacrosse until the middle of the nineteenth century. Beginning in the 1850s, Canadian settlers in the area around
Montreal started to play lacrosse. The version of lacrosse they played was based upon the Mohawk version, as that was the version played in the region in which the
Canadian settlers lived. This development led to William George Beers officially codifying the rules of the sport in 1867. The timing of this is very important, as it coincided with a growing nationalist movement in Canada associated with the
10 Fisher, Lacrosse, 13. 11 Fisher, Lacrosse, 13. 10 confederation of Canada, which was a key step toward independence from Great
Britain. Beers decided that part of this nationalist movement should include the declaration of a national game, and he saw lacrosse as a natural choice. In 1860 he stated that, “this game, being now purely Canadian, is likely to become the National
Game of Canada.”12 The “Canadian” conceptualization of lacrosse is very different from the Native American roots of the game, and refers to the result of “applying the forces of ‘progress’ –rationalism, secularism, and bureaucracy” to lacrosse.13 Instead of something spiritual that could also be a proxy for war and a way to resolve disputes, it had become only a game.
For lacrosse to be repossessed by Canadians from the Native Americans, a number of factors had to align. These included the “marginalization of the Iroquois
Confederacy, the formation of a Victorian sporting culture,” and a rise in Canadian nationalism.14 The marginalization of the Native populations was important because
Native Americans “realized that non-native enthusiasts were restructuring their game and imposing administrative control over it” but they were not in a position to stop it from happening.15 Despite all of these factors converging, it remains somewhat strange that settlers chose to embrace a Native American sport considering that in almost all facets of life settlers attempted to eradicate Native culture and force Native Americans to conform to European culture and traditions.
Elsewhere in the New World, settlers imposed Old World sports on the indigenous populations, with soccer being a prime example. There was some historical
12 Fisher, Lacrosse, 26. 13 Fisher, Lacrosse, 11. 14 Fisher, Lacrosse, 10. 15 Fisher, Lacrosse, 6. 11 precedent, however, for the appropriation and modification of a lower class sport, which is how the settlers viewed Native lacrosse. One such example that holds particular significance was that “affluent athletes in Great Britain had adopted medieval folk football from rural peasant culture, transformed it into several modern team sports, and championed the cultural values of amateurism.”16 The
British settlers in Canada mimicked this phenomenon in their adoption of lacrosse, which should not be surprising considering they viewed themselves as a gentlemanly class in the same mold as the affluent British athletes that Fisher mentions. The result was the appropriation of a Native American cultural tradition and the beginning of its transformation into the modern form of lacrosse. Fisher credits Beers as having created an ethos of the sport of lacrosse as “an elite sporting element of culture” which set the sport apart as belonging to a higher social and economic class.17 One hopeful note, though, is that Native Americans are now actively reclaiming the sport and realigning it with their culture and traditions.
The appropriation of lacrosse by white Canadians reflected two separate but related factors: the imposition of a Canadian nation-state upon this part of North
America, and the strengthening Canada’s connection to Britain as an imperial power through Canada’s dominion status. The Canadian subjugation of Native Americans, including taking control over their sport, can be viewed as a reaction to imperial control of Canada by Great Britain. In 1860, the Prince of Wales, the heir to the
British throne, made a visit on behalf of Great Britain to Canada. This visit, whether intentional or not, acted as a tool to cement British control over their Canadian
16 Fisher, Lacrosse, 10. 17 Fisher, Lacrosse, 5. 12 subjects. At one stop on this tour of Canada, the prince was treated to an exhibition game of lacrosse, in which Beers was one of the goaltenders. By playing a “sanitized” version of a Native sport, the Canadian settlers were essentially demonstrating their position of power over the Native Americans, as well as projecting an image to their
British rulers that they were more civil and proper than the Native population.18
While in its native form lacrosse could become extraordinarily violent, once modified, the game was a more controlled form of physicality. This was likely appealing to the European elite, as it would help to alleviate the concern of a debasement of the British culture, which had been transported to Canada, through association with Native Americans. This was a concern due to the fact that Native
Americans had been cast in the European consciousness as savage due to the violent nature of their clashes with European, particularly French, troops. The exhibition game signified that lacrosse was now a civilized game that was the cultural property of white Canadians rather than the Native Americans who developed it. 19
The adaptation of lacrosse by European settlers surely stripped lacrosse of much the spiritual and cultural value it had for Native Americans, and through that same process, other values were attached to it to serve an agenda. The cultural, social, and political value of fostering a gentlemanly image was a main cause for the
18 Fisher, Lacrosse, 10. 19 Ian Radforth, Royal Spectacle: The 1860 Visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada and the United States (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004). The issues and lines between violence and civility as they relate to European imperial powers, North American settlers, and Native Americans are explored by Christian Crouch in her book Nobility Lost: French and Canadian Martial Cultures, Indians, and the End of New France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014.) In the book, Crouch writes that continental French elites increasing differentiated and distanced their idea of martial valor from the violence displayed by Native Americans in battle over the course of the eighteenth century. 13 importance placed on amateurism in lacrosse. The value placed on amateurism was also a holdover from Britain, where the affluent, higher social class, embraced the benefits of amateurism. A gentleman would be expected to play a sport for the natural rewards rather than for economic gain. Therefore, as the Canadians appropriated the game for their own purposes, amateurism quickly became tied to the sport of lacrosse and became the dominant ideology of the game, even as many other sports became professionalized. Inextricably tied to the battle between amateurism and professionalism is commercialism. Then as it is now, commercialism was viewed by many as a direct threat to amateurism in sport, so there was a great deal of tension throughout the history of lacrosse between commercialism and amateurism. The risk of commercialization created staunch opposition among the lacrosse playing elite who favored a model of amateurism. By keeping lacrosse from being commercialized, the lacrosse community was able to keep the playing base small. An additional factor in keeping lacrosse as a small-scale sport was the scarcity of lacrosse sticks, which for much of the sport’s history were hand-made by Native American craftsmen. In fact a “fully commercialized version of lacrosse (did not) have any success” in America until near the end of the twentieth century.20 The pure, amateur, model of lacrosse in turn attracted other wealthy players, essentially compounding the link between social class and the culture of the sport.
The second factor in the adoption of lacrosse as the national sport of Canada was directly connected to the subjugation of the Native Americans. One reason why
20 Fisher, Lacrosse, 6. 14 white settlers chose to make lacrosse their own is partially rooted in the idealization of the noble savage. This concept is often incorrectly attributed to Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, as it is similar but not exactly the same as his writings on humans in a state of nature. The noble savage is an idealized person who has not been corrupted by the problems of civilization and is therefore inherently good. The concept of the noble savage is often romantically associated with Native Americans as they lived outside of traditional Western civilization. Key aspects of this ideal, according to
Anthony Aveni, a professor of anthropology and Native American studies at Colgate
University, were “bravery, endurance, and purity in nature.”21 This way of thinking by Europeans gave some level of respect to the Native American population, even as the action of subjugating the Native Americans contradicted this mindset. Aveni has claimed that the white fascination with lacrosse stems from a deep respect for the
Native American athlete as a “noble savage.”22 Dating back to its roots as a preparation tool for war as well as a spiritually significant game, the sport of lacrosse certainly encompassed many of the same ideals that were associated with the noble savage. For this reason, “white athletes idolized the Native American warrior of antiquity for his bravery, endurance, and purity in nature,” which in turn fueled their interest in playing lacrosse as it was the sport of Native American warriors.23
Through the playing of lacrosse, whites in North America celebrated Native
American culture even as they destroyed it. Ironically, the celebration of Native
21 “The Indian Origins of Lacrosse.” 22 “The Indian Origins of Lacrosse.” 23 “The Indian Origins of Lacrosse.” 15 culture by whites was possible in large part because the Native culture was destroyed. Beers wrote that “long, long after the romantic ‘sons of the forest’ have passed away, long, long after their sun sinks in the west to rise no more, Lacrosse will remind the pale-faces of Canada of the noble Indians that once lorded it over this continent.”24 This quote highlights the contradiction of the romanticized view of the noble savage. In the same sentence Beers both refers to Native Americans as noble and alludes to their population being completely erased. It seems as if Beers subscribed to the “‘vanishing race’ theory…that the indigenes of the continent would disappear as a matter of natural course,” a widespread belief at during the time period.25 The admiration of the noble savage and the vanishing race theory certainly seem to run in opposition to each other. However, the two ideas are actually directly related. Kristen Southworth has written that, “because they believed that extinction of Indians was inevitable, the new white Americans began justifying their own traditions as the celebration of an ancient culture, while at the same time justifying the actions being taken against existing Indians that killed or otherwise displaced them from their homelands.”26 With the Native American population considered to be vanishing, the accompanying threat level they posed to white settlers was also decreasing. As such, there seemingly was less hostility toward culture and more space for respect for and celebration of their history and traditions, even as there
24 Fisher, Lacrosse, 26. 25 Alan Trachtenberg, Shades of Hiawatha: Staging Indians, Making Americans, 1880- 1930 (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), 4. 26 Kristen L. Southworth, “Playing Indian: The Search for an American Identity,” review of Playing Indian, by Philip Deloria, September 2004, http://www.breathofstatues.com/uploads/Playing_Indian.pdf, accessed April 28, 2016. 16 was physical hostility toward them. For those who might have been uncomfortable with the notion of exterminating a culture, this provided a way to feel good about what they were doing. They could convince themselves, and maybe others, that they were preserving at least some of the culture of a group that was destined to dwindle and disappear.
An additional factor in the Canadian fascination with lacrosse was its link to bravery and manhood. It was a sport of warriors, used to prepare them for battle.
For the white Canadians as with the Native populations, a great deal of value was placed on bravery as a part of manhood, setting lacrosse up as a tool to shape boys into men through the playing of the game. The sport was viewed as a vehicle through which boys and men could acquire the values associated with the noble savage. It was widely believed that playing lacrosse could “serve young men facing the challenges brought on by industrialization and urbanization through the development of character and manliness.”27 As Fisher notes, this belief “helped justify rough, physical, but not excessively violent activity among collegians and schoolboys.”28 The controlled physicality and aggression, coupled with the skill required to play, appealed to those of higher social classes. The fact that some contact and aggression remained, and the game was not completely de-fanged, echoes the theory that lacrosse was played due to the bravery and toughness that it valued and required.
The spread of this new version of the game coupled with attacks (not necessarily physical or military) on Native American culture and territory
27 Fisher, Lacrosse, 10. 28 Fisher, Lacrosse, 5. 17 essentially cemented a hierarchy in which Native culture and traditions were considered to be inferior to those of the European settlers. It is important to frame this takeover and subjugation of lacrosse within the context of the nineteenth century, which was a time of hardening racial constructions throughout the Western world, especially in North America. According to Audrey and Brian Smedley, “race signified a new ideology about human difference and a new way of structuring society that had not existed before in human history.”29 This new system of
“categorization for humanity was needed because the leaders of the America colonies at the turn of the 18th century had deliberately selected Africans to be permanent slaves,” which explains why this “modern ideology of race took on a life of its own in the latter half of the 19th century.”30 This was based on pseudo-science that supported the solidification of a rigid racial hierarchy. Proponents of the idea that there were scientific differences between races used this as a rationale for their view that some races were superior to others. Part of this idea required making a distinction between ethnicities and races. “Ethnicity was recognized as plastic and transmissible, but race conveyed the notion of differences that could not be transcended.”31 Like African Americans, Native Americans were considered to be inferior to whites, and therefore the subjugation of the population and the extermination or appropriation of their culture was justified.
29 Audrey Smedley & Brian D. Smedley, “Race as biology is fiction, racism as a social problem is real: Anthropological and historical perspectives on the social construction of race,” American Psychologist 26:1 (2005): 19. 30 Smedley, 19-20. 31 Smedley, 19. 18
The appropriation of lacrosse by the white Canadians was a prime example of this way of thinking. The takeover of lacrosse was so thorough that rules were actually put in place that were designed to exclude Native American teams from competition. Some of these rules did this without being explicitly phrased as exclusionary. One such example is that Native teams were barred from competition on the grounds that they were professionals rather than amateurs due to the traditional Native American practice of wagering on games. Historian Thomas
Vennum mentions this development, saying that, “In 1880 the National Lacrosse
Association of Canada ruled that only amateurs could play, effectively barring Indian teams from further competition in national championships, which they had been winning consistently.”32 In many ways, the takeover of lacrosse mirrors the takeover and subjugation of native populations as a whole.
After Beers codified the rules of the sport, lacrosse grew rapidly in popularity
“with a dash and suddenness that is typical of the game itself.”33 Its gentlemanly roots and place as an elite sport were “transplanted to the United States by
Canadian immigrants and germinated in private athletic clubs as well as prestigious institutions of higher and secondary education.”34 Lacrosse began to be played in the state of New York in the 1860s. Lacrosse in America stayed an elite sport, which was not the case in Canada, where the sport began to become commercialized and lacrosse “enjoyed a multiclass clientele.”35 One reason why lacrosse in Canada
32 Vennum, 272. 33 “Lacrosse in Favor,” New York Evening Telegram, January 9, 1891, accessed April 12, 2016. 34 Fisher, Lacrosse, 5. 35 Fisher, Lacrosse, 53. 19 became multiclass is that the “rhetoric of lacrosse as Canada’s ‘national game’ may have appealed to Canadians of different social classes.”36 There was no such rhetoric in America, which combined with the sport’s ties to amateurism kept lacrosse as a sport for the upper class. By the 1870s some colleges in the Northeast had added lacrosse as a spring sport.37 Other colleges and universities soon followed suit and founded lacrosse programs. Despite this, “organized competition among clubs and universities was sporadic” until the early twentieth century when governing bodies for the sport became stronger and progressively more centralized.38 As an interesting side note, Bard College, then known as St. Stephen’s College, was among the earliest colleges to add a men’s lacrosse team, but the school’s team disbanded a few years later. Regardless of name, the presence of an intercollegiate governing body for the sport of lacrosse created a platform where the sport could be played by those privileged enough to attend college. Further compounding this is that many collegiate programs worked to “promote lacrosse at local preparatory and secondary schools” which would in turn “benefit the university community by enrolling enthusiastic new lacrosse-playing students from prep schools.”39 This phenomenon helped to spread lacrosse to yet another area that was only accessible to the upper class. Collegiate lacrosse became the pinnacle of the sport, a position that it remains in today. Therefore, lacrosse on its highest level too remained a privilege to play, only available to certain classes of people.
36 Fisher, Lacrosse, 53. 37 Fisher, Lacrosse, 64. 38 Fisher, Lacrosse, 64. 39 Fisher, Lacrosse, 82. 20
The physical spaces where sports are played determine who can play them and what values and traditions they reinforce and perpetuate. The space required to play lacrosse was a significant factor in where it could be played and where it flourished. Lacrosse requires a large grass playing field, which contributed to it being played mostly in suburban or rural areas rather than in cities. In cities, due to the scarcity and value of open space, the sport largely stayed in private athletic clubs and at wealthy schools. As wealth began to move to the suburbs in the twentieth century, this further separated the sports played by the wealthy of the suburbs and the less wealthy who remained in cities. The playing of lacrosse was a tool passing down values through sport to members of an elite class, thereby preserving the culture and exclusivity of this class of people.
Although the physical space needed to play a particular sport has an effect on where it is played, that is not the only factor. Baseball, like lacrosse, requires a large field, but it emerged as a city sport in the nineteenth century, around the same time that lacrosse was becoming popular outside of the cities. Although the game of baseball requires a large field, “street baseball, which could be played in a limited space and required no expensive equipment, advanced immensely the cause of play in an urban world.”40 An additional difference was the lacrosse had become associated with the privileged classes, but baseball is a sport in which poor men and immigrants could rise to fame and fortune. This perception of the game as accessible to anyone with talent made it very popular among the working class and immigrant populations, who were primarily in cities. As Gunther Barth notes, “seeing others
40 Gunther Paul Barth, City People: The Rise of Modern City Culture in Nineteenth- Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 177. 21 play ball for a living encouraged them to play sandlot baseball.”41 Due to it being cast as America’s sport, baseball was also important in the assimilation process to
American culture. “Rooting for a big-city team also gave rootless people a sense of belonging. It also helped them acquire a better understanding of their new world.”42
Watching and playing baseball was an effective way to communicate American values to immigrants, and it therefore became a tool for establishing and maintaining an urban industrial order.
It almost goes without saying, but the cost of equipment for various sports is an extremely important factor in determining who plays them. Out of team sports, lacrosse is among the most expensive sports in terms of equipment cost. A player must have a helmet, stick, gloves, shoulder pads, elbow pads, cleats, and a ball; meaning that “It can cost more than $300 to fully outfit a youth player, and that doesn't include shorts, sweats, T-shirts, a mouthpiece, a ball, cleats and socks.”43 At higher levels with better quality equipment, equipment costs can total up to nearly a thousand dollars, creating an environment where “the financial barrier to play can be overwhelming.”44 In an era before technologically advanced equipment, the cost was certainly less. However, when compared to basketball, where all one needs is a ball, or baseball where all one needs is a bat, glove, and ball, the cost of lacrosse equipment is and was exorbitant. Poor children can simulate baseball with a ball
41 Barth, City People, 190. 42 Barth, City People, 187. 43 Quint Kessenich, “Long-Awaited Move Toward Diversity Draws Cheers, ESPN,” Baltimore Sun, February 11, 2016, http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/bs-sp- quint-kessenich-column-0212-20160211-story.html, accessed April 28, 2016. 44 “Long-Awaited Move Toward Diversity.” 22 and a stick, soccer can be played in a corner lot with only a ball, but lacrosse requires a specialized stick that is expensive and not readily available.
While baseball became the sport of the masses, a game of equal opportunity in which anyone could participate and excel, regardless of race, ethnicity or socioeconomic background, lacrosse became a sport of the elite. By the late nineteenth century, the key features of lacrosse as a sport—amateurism and elitism—were firmly established, and continued to be defining characteristics of the sport for another century. The other defining feature of lacrosse that has persisted is its link to Native American culture. Other than the concept of using webbed sticks to throw a ball, however, the original game bears little resemblance to the one now played on well-manicured fields across wealthy American suburbs, at hundreds of colleges and universities, and in professional leagues. Despite the significant changes to the game and to the demographics of the players, the idealization of
Native Americans and lacrosse’s native roots has persisted on into the present, as
“affluent white athletes saw themselves as the symbolic descendants of romanticized Indian warriors of old.”45 This view is essentially a centuries-long manifestation of cultural appropriation and could be seen as problematic for the sport but is not often talked about. Southworth has criticized the way in which white
Americans approach Native American culture and the ways in which they use native symbols and traditions “to remind them of whatever they needed to be reminded of
(i.e. freedom, spirituality, equality, community, etc.) in order to make themselves feel inextricably bound to the land again, to make them feel authentic, and to give
45 Fisher, Lacrosse, 5. 23 their lives a sense of meaning, purpose and worth.”46 The cultural appropriation of lacrosse seems particularly problematic since the sport has been associated with elite upper-class white society. This trend, however, may be changing for the better.
In the last twenty years, there has been a noticeable change in the sport.
Lacrosse is increasingly drawing players from beyond its traditional base. There are now players coming from schools outside of the Northeast, and athletes are beginning to represent a wider demographic pool in terms of class, race, ethnicity, and gender.
46 Southworth, “Playing Indian: The Search for an American Identity.” 24
Chapter 2: Growth of the Game
Despite historically having been played by Native Americans from the
Southeast, Midwest, Great Lakes region, and the Northeast, lacrosse in its modern form was largely a regional sport focused largely in the Northeast until fairly recently. It is most popular in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, but its popularity has been spreading to other areas of the United States and around the world. The Federation of International Lacrosse, for example, currently has thirty member countries, with many more as associate members and emerging nations.47
Recently, lacrosse has been one of the fastest growing sports in America, a trend that has been starting at the youth level. US Lacrosse defines youth players as those who are aged fifteen and younger. According to data compiled by US Lacrosse that can be seen in Table 1, in 2006 there were 139,188 boys playing lacrosse and by 2014 these numbers had increased to 279,771 boys, which is almost a doubling of participation in just eight years.48 In those intermediate years, the one-year growth rates for boys and girls playing lacrosse never dropped below 3.7% and were as high as 12.1%. This growth is especially impressive considering that between 2007 and 2014 the number of children between the ages of six and twelve who played sports dropped from 35% to 27%.49 The decline in overall sports
47 “Members by Member Type,” Federation of International Lacrosse, http://filacrosse.com/members-by-type/, accessed May 3, 2016. 48 US Lacrosse, “US Lacrosse Participation Survey,” 2014, 5. 49 Brian Logue, “Small Ball: More Fun Today, Better Players Tomorrow,” Lacrosse Magazine, February 17, 2016, http://www.laxmagazine.com/genrel/021716_small_ball_more_fun _today_better_players_tomorrow, accessed April 28, 2016. 25 participation could potentially be a result of the economic downturn and families no longer having enough disposable income to have their children participate in sports.
Despite youth lacrosse participation growth rates remaining positive, it is interesting to note that, after peaking at 12.1% in 2009, four of the five years after that growth rates were in the single digits. This trend is somewhat concerning as it suggests a plateau may be approaching for of the growth of lacrosse.
Regionally, US Lacrosse lists the states where lacrosse is growing the fastest at the youth and high school levels as Washington, Oregon, California, Minnesota,
Wisconsin, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.50
Notably, eight of these ten states fall outside of what are traditionally considered to be strong lacrosse areas, with Pennsylvania and New Jersey being the exceptions.
50 “US Lacrosse Participation Survey,” 3. 26
Despite this growth, there are still many states that offer few lacrosse opportunities to youth and high school players. This information can be seen in Figure 1.
A 2015 report published by the SFIA (Sports and Fitness Industry
Association) showed that lacrosse was the fastest growing team sport in America in terms of growth percentage and in actual growth. The report, titled SFIA 2015
Sports, Fitness, and Leisure Activities Topline Participation Report, is based upon the years 2012-2014. The report measured the number of core participants, defined as those who participated in a sport or activity multiple times per year, in any given 27 activity. Lacrosse was found to have over one million core participants, an increase of 213,000 new participants which is equivalent to 12.3% growth from two years previous. This information is illustrated in Table 2. This growth is even more impressive given that over that time period, only 28 of 104 sports and activities that the report highlights experienced any growth at all. In addition, very few of what are considered to be traditionally popular team sports are listed among the fastest growing athletic activities. In fact, basketball, baseball, football, soccer, softball, and track & field combined to experience a drop in participation of over two and a half million children aged six through twelve between 2008 and 2013.51
51 “America’s 15 Fastest Growing Sports & Activities,” PHIT America, http://www.phitamerica.org/News_Archive/America_s_Fast_Growing_Sports.htm, accessed April 28, 2016; “Small Ball.” 28
Growth at the youth level of lacrosse has also translated to the high school level, as would be expected (see Table 3). The number of boys’ high school lacrosse teams grew by 27.8% from 2009 to 2014 according to US Lacrosse, up from 1,984 to
2,535 teams.52 The next fastest growing boys’ high school sport that is listed in the report is swimming, which grew at only 8.3%. The fact that high school lacrosse’s growth rate is more than triple the next closest sports is truly striking. It is important to note that these numbers only represent schools within the scope of the
National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). US Lacrosse estimates that, in addition to the 2,535 reported teams, there are over 1,000 other schools sponsoring lacrosse that are not included in this data. This estimate is backed up by the archives on LaxPower.com. For the 2014 season, the site states that there were 3,596 high school boys’ lacrosse teams.53
52 “US Lacrosse Participation Survey,” 6. 53 “Boys National Coaches/Computer Rankings,” Laxpower, http://www.laxpower.com/update14/binboy/natlccr.php, accessed April 28, 2016. 29
While the number of high school lacrosse players is increasing, the growth rate of players participating is decreasing. Between 2007 and 2010, the one-year growth rate of high school players was at least 12% in three out of four years, but between 2012 and 2014 the rate was never higher than 2.8%. Just as in youth lacrosse, these percentages could indicate a plateau is being approached in the growth of lacrosse. This may be the result of changing demographics in the United
States. Over the past century, lacrosse has been played predominantly by wealthy white males. Since the percentage of whites in the U.S. population is rapidly decreasing, one way in which lacrosse could work to overcome this plateau in growth would be to become more inclusive and actively attract new demographics to the sport.54
54 “US Lacrosse Participation Survey,” 6. 30
Along with increased participation numbers, boys’ high school lacrosse has also spread geographically. For the 2016 season, LaxPower.com suggests that forty- five out of the fifty states in America will field at least one boys’ high school lacrosse team; the only states left out are Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, North Dakota, and
Wyoming.55 The oldest data available on the site is for the 1999 season, in which twenty-nine states fielded at least one team.56 The sixteen states that have become home to boys high school lacrosse over the intermediary years are Alabama, Hawaii,
Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. By geographical region, four southern states have added programs, nine western states have added programs, and three midwestern states have added programs. Every state in the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast region already was fielding at least one high school team in 1999. One encouraging trend in high school lacrosse is the increase in games between teams from different geographic regions. This trend fosters more growth and shows how far the sport has come in non-traditional regions. Schools from California, Florida, Texas, and other states have begun competing against schools from states such as Maryland and New York, and, impressively, many of them are holding their own in these matchups. There is still a great deal of room for growth, however. Despite the fact that there are boys’ lacrosse teams in forty-five states, only twenty-two states’ governing bodies officially sanction the sport and
55 “High School Boy’s Lacrosse 2016,” Laxpower, http://www.laxpower.com/common/hs_boys.php, accessed April 28, 2016. 56 “High School Power Ratings 1999,” Laxpower, http://www.laxpower.com/HS1999.htm, accessed April 28, 2016. 31 only fourteen percent of NFHS member schools nationwide sponsor a lacrosse team.57
On the collegiate level, men’s lacrosse has experienced mostly steady growth, with rates picking up in recent years. Based on the NCAA Sports Sponsorship and
Participation Rates Report for 1981-1982 through 2013-2014, men’s lacrosse experienced the greatest net change in sponsorship between 1988 and 2014 of any men’s varsity sport except for indoor track and field, with which it is tied. The net change in number of men’s programs across all divisions during this time period was 174.58 The number of collegiate men’s lacrosse teams is likely to continue to increase. This is due to the fact that out of all male high school athletes, lacrosse players are the most likely to continue playing their sport in college, which is shown in Table 4.59 The percentage of high school players who go on to play in college for most other sports listed fall around three to seven percent, making lacrosse and hockey extreme outliers at 11.9% and 11.2%, respectively. Therefore, logic would suggest that the number of collegiate programs would eventually increase until the percentage of high school athletes who go on to play lacrosse in college falls more in line with the corresponding percentage for other sports. Similar to the economic law of just price, it stands to reason that more colleges will add lacrosse and these percentages will eventually regress to the mean.
57 “US Lacrosse Participation Survey,” 6. 58 NCAA, NCAA Sports Sponsorship And Participation Rates Report 1981-1982 -- 2013- 2014 (Indianapolis: National Collegiate Athletic Association, 2014), 283. 59 “Estimated Probability of Competing in College Athletics,” NCAA, http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/estimated-probability-competing- college-athletics, accessed April 28, 2016. 32
All of the data provided by the NCAA demonstrates that lacrosse is spreading on the collegiate level, but there is no information in the NCAA report about geographic spread. To examine whether the sport has spread geographically in addition to grown in participation numbers, I have compiled data based on geographical regions for schools that sponsored a men’s lacrosse team in 2006 as well as 2016, using laxpower.com as a resource. For the purposes of a regional 33 breakdown, I am defining the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast as Washington DC, Delaware,
Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island,
Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine. The South is defined as Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. The Midwest is Minnesota, Iowa,
Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and West Virginia.
The West is defined as all other states. The regional breakdown can be seen on a map on Figure 2.
Using NCAA men’s Division One lacrosse as a case study, in 2006 the Mid-
Atlantic/Northeast region accounted for over 82% of teams. The next closest regions only accounted for 7% each. Data from 2016 shows that the Mid- 34
Atlantic/Northeast is now home to 74% of teams, which despite the decrease in percentage, is still representative of a majority of teams. While the region has added five of the fourteen new programs over this ten year period, that only represents
10% growth. Meanwhile, the south has been home to six new programs between
2006 and 2016, a figure that does not count Presbyterian University, which added and dropped a Division One men’s lacrosse program during that period. The addition of six new programs equates to a growth rate of 150%. This growth has doubled the South’s percentage of total programs, from 7% in 2006 to 14% in 2016.
Three of the four previously defined regions experienced growth in participating teams; only the West stayed stagnant.
To analyze this data, it is important to outline what differentiates a Division
One program from the other two divisions. The key criteria for differentiation comes down to athletic funding and scholarships. Per the NCAA website, “Division I schools must meet minimum financial aid awards for their athletics program, and there are maximum financial aid awards for each sport that a Division I school cannot exceed.”60 Much of the other criteria is specific to revenue sports, such as football, which indirectly affects lacrosse. From 2006 to 2016, the schools that have added
Division One lacrosse have all been non-FBS, football bowl subdivision, schools with the lone exception of the University of Michigan. In fact, Michigan was the first FBS
60 “Divisional Differences and the History of Multidivision Classification,” NCAA, http://www.ncaa.org/about/who-we-are/membership/divisional-differences-and- history-multidivision-classification, accessed May 3, 2016. 35 school to add men’s lacrosse since Notre Dame started their program in 1981.61
Since then, FBS schools such as Boston College, North Carolina State, Michigan State, and University of Connecticut have all shuttered their men’s lacrosse programs and there are now only fourteen schools with an FBS football team and a men’s lacrosse team.62
The reason behind this lies in the NCAA requirement that scholarships must be balanced by gender, and the FBS rule that a football team is allotted eighty-five scholarships, far more than any other sport. Simply put, most FBS schools have more women’s athletic teams to balance out their football scholarships and therefore would have difficulty adding men’s lacrosse. To do so, schools would need to add a corresponding women’s sport to avoid creating a scholarship imbalance, and often adding two large teams is not financially feasible, as “only 25 out of 119
FBS schools reported a net revenue for the 2008 fiscal year.”63 Adding lacrosse is even more difficult for schools to do because most collegiate lacrosse programs do not generate positive revenue. According to “2008 Department of Education statistics, the average yearly combined cost to run both a men’s and women’s
Division I lacrosse program is about $1.25 million. Average combined revenue for both programs, however, is about $1 million.”64 This is one reason for why regional
61 Terry Foy, “Breaking: Michigan Men’s Lacrosse to go D1 in 2012, Women’s in 2013,” Inside Lacrosse, http://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/breaking-michigan- men-s-lacrosse-to-go-di-in-2012-women-s-in-2013/511, accessed April 28, 2016. 62 “NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse Team Pages,” Lacrosse Magazine, http://www.laxmagazine.com/college_men/DI/teams/index, accessed May 3, 2016. 63 Brian Schneider, “Title IX Still Restricting Growth of Lacrosse at the Collegiate Level,” Inside Lacrosse, http://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/title-ix-still- restricting-growth-lacrosse-collegiate-level/8538, accessed April 28, 2016. 64 “Title IX Still Restricting Growth.” 36 growth rates for the Midwest, South, and West in Division One men’s lacrosse have lagged behind the rates for women’s lacrosse in those regions. This is because many schools with large football programs have used women’s lacrosse to help balance out scholarships from football. As a result, there are more than double the number of FBS schools with a women’s lacrosse team than there are with a men’s lacrosse team.65 The data for Division One growth can be found in Table 5, additional data for
Division One is available in the appendix in Tables 13 and 14.
The growth trends from Division One men’s lacrosse are also apparent in
Division Two, which has experienced the fastest rate of growth from 2006 to 2016 by more than doubling the number of participating teams. Like Division One schools, Division Two programs can offer athletic scholarships, although the numbers are more limited. This is a factor in why Division Two is growing more rapidly than Division One. In 2006 the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast region was home to
56% of Division Two lacrosse programs, and just ten years later this percentage has dropped to 38. In this case much of the difference has been made up by the Midwest
65 “NCAA Division I Women’s Lacrosse Team Pages,” Lacrosse Magazine, http://www.laxmagazine.com/college_women/DI/teams/index, accessed May 3, 2016. 37 and West regions, which have risen by 9% and 7% respectively. The West had no programs in Division Two in 2006 but had added five by 2016, an infinite growth rate created by a small sample size. Interestingly, the South region has added more programs than any other region, but their percent hold has remained fairly similar, only rising from 36% to 38% over the ten-year period. This data is shown in Table 6, and additional data for Division Two can be found in Tables 15 and 16 in the appendix.
Lacrosse in Division Three has experienced rapid growth as well, adding nearly one hundred teams in only ten years, including almost twenty new teams in
2013 alone.66 This division has experienced the largest amount of growth from 2006 to 2016 in terms of number of teams, which could be in part due to the fact that
Division Three schools cannot offer athletic scholarships, which eases the burden of balancing sports with larger rosters such as football. Regionally, the Mid-
Atlantic/Northeast has added forty programs, including Bard College, which has added a program two separate times but is only counted as one for the purposes of this study. However, the region has still seen its percentage share of the total
66 “NCAA Sports Sponsorship And Participation Rates Report,” 200-201. 38 number of teams fall from 85% to 67%. Despite adding more programs than any other region, this still only represents 35% growth. The South region has been home to fifteen new programs, seemingly not many, but this represents more than 100% growth, rising the region’s percentage hold from 8% to 11%. The Midwest has been home to a boom in Division Three men’s lacrosse. As recently as 2006, there were only six schools in the region playing the sport, and for the 2016 season forty-five schools sponsor teams, a growth rate of 650%. These thirty-nine new programs are responsible for the region’s percentage share more than quadrupling from 4% to
19%. The West region has doubled its number of programs, but due to the overall growth of the division, the region’s percentage share has only risen by .2% from
2006 to 2016. This data can be seen in Table 7, while additional data for Division
Three can be seen in Tables 17 and 18 in the appendix.
Examining all the divisions together, the same trends hold. College lacrosse, as well as the game as a whole, is growing rapidly and seems primed for even more growth. As University of Maryland coach John Tillman put it, “we want to get to every area possible and every college possible and also to every geographic 39 region.”67 Overall, over the ten years from 2006 to 2016 men’s college lacrosse has undergone 65% growth, going from 219 teams to 363. The Mid-Atlantic/Northeast has added fifty-four teams while losing one. Regional growth over the ten years was
29%, accounting for 36% of the total growth of the sport. Men’s lacrosse in the
South has grown from twenty-six teams in 2006 to sixty-one in 2016, growing at
134% and representing 24% of the total growth. In the Midwest, there has been a net gain of forty-nine men’s lacrosse as a result of a 408% growth rate in the region, accounting for 33% of the total growth of the sport. Finally, in the West, there have only been seven new programs across all three divisions of play. Lacrosse has grown in the region at a rate of 175%, but this growth accounts for only 4% of the total growth of men’s collegiate lacrosse. This data is seen in Table 8.
Digging further into the growth trends, it becomes possible to make certain assumptions about causation. In the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast, there was a higher concentration of programs in 2006 and a greater percentage of total NCAA schools
67 Rick Maese, “How A Grieving Mom Achieved Her Son’s Dream: A Black College Lacrosse Team,” Washington Post, February 11, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/how-a-grieving-mom-achieved- her-sons-dream-a-black-college-lacrosse-team/2016/02/11/946fe286-d0e4-11e5- 90d3-34c2c42653ac_story.html, accessed April 28, 2016. 40 already had a men’s lacrosse team. Therefore there was less room for growth. A saturation point had not, and has not, been reached in the region, but that point is significantly closer than it is in regions that are newer to the sport. As seen in Table
20, for the 2016 season, over sixty percent of NCAA schools in the Northeast region will sponsor a men’s lacrosse team. This number is nearly triple the percentage of schools playing lacrosse in the South (24.80%) and Midwest (22.93%) and fifteen times the percentage of schools from the West (4.52%) which sponsor teams (see
Table 9). As the youth player base continues to grow, schools in these regions are most likely to add lacrosse to keep up with the increase in demand for collegiate roster spots.
When examining the percentages state by state, the nine states with the highest percentages of schools playing lacrosse are all in the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast region, and every state in the region falls in the top fifteen (see Table 10). By comparison, the other regions each only have one state in the top fifteen.
Interestingly, the list of states that have been home to the fastest growth of 41 collegiate programs does not match up very closely with the list of states home to the fastest growth at the youth level as seen in Figure 1. In fact, only one of the states in the highest grouping of youth growth rates, Wisconsin, also placed among the highest grouping of collegiate growth rates. Other states such as Minnesota,
Oregon, and Washington, which were in the highest grouping of youth lacrosse growth rates, still are not home to even one men’s collegiate lacrosse program. This is an interesting statistical anomaly that seems likely to change, as all of these states are already home to at least one women’s collegiate lacrosse team. 42
43
The drastic geographic disparity in the percentage of schools playing men’s lacrosse has persisted in spite of states in the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast region experiencing comparatively slow growth over the ten-year interval leading up to
2016, as shown in Table 11. States in the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast region ranged from 0% to 51% growth. This lag is almost certainly due to a higher percentage of schools that were already fielding a men’s lacrosse team in 2006. The Mid-
Atlantic/Northeastern state with the fastest growth over that period was
Pennsylvania at 51%, which only ranked twenty-second out of all states and only above twelve states that actually have any lacrosse programs. Meanwhile, every state in the Midwest except for Minnesota experienced at least 200% growth in the number of collegiate men’s lacrosse teams, and every state in the South was home to growth rates of at least 45%. Growth in the West was more sporadic, as some states grew at an infinite rate while many others experienced no growth at all. 44
45
Studying where in the country the number of collegiate programs is growing paints part of the picture of growth in lacrosse, but is also important to study where the players on these teams are coming from. Brian Coughlin, a contributor to Inside
Lacrosse and the Director of Lacrosse Operations at Villanova University, has published data on where men’s Division One lacrosse players hail from (see Table
12). The data is based on a comparison of the freshmen class from the 2014 spring season to the total player population from the 2013 season. An increased percentage in a sample of this size could indicate a trend, but it is also possible for one-year anomalies. In addition, Coughlin admits that the regions that he outlines could be considered “arbitrary” but that they are based off of areas where lacrosse players are greatly clustered. He chose only to include regions that produced at least fifty division one players and at least one All-American player. Traditionally, a majority of collegiate lacrosse players have come from a small number of geographic areas, otherwise known as hotbeds. Some examples are the Baltimore area, the Syracuse area, and Long Island. According to Coughlin’s research, many of the areas that once were the primary centers of talent have seen their percentage share of collegiate players dwindle, while other areas such as California and Canada have been home to rising percentages of college lacrosse players. In 2013, legendary lacrosse coach Bill Tierney, who has won seven national championships, stated that,
“the number of hotbeds has increased. California and Canada are now right there with New York, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore.”68
68 Brian Coughlin, “Analyzing Hotbeds By the Numbers,” Inside Lacrosse, November 5, 2013, http://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/coughlin-analyzing-hotbeds-by- the-numbers/20953, accessed April 28, 2016. 46
Despite the geographic spread of lacrosse from youth up to collegiate levels, the case could be made that even as the game spreads to disparate parts of the country, it still tends to be played in similar areas. In most non-hotbed areas, those newer to lacrosse, or rising hotbeds, the sport tends to be played in the relatively wealthy suburbs of cities. For example, lacrosse in Texas has been growing rather rapidly, but it is clustered mostly in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston metro areas.
This same trend can be seen in California around San Diego, Los Angeles, and San
Francisco. Other states such as Colorado, Washington, Illinois, and Missouri also show this phenomenon. One potential reason for this is that many of the lacrosse programs in these areas are spearheaded by former players who have relocated from traditional hotbed areas to new geographic locations for employment opportunities. This reasoning is supported by Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala 47 who was quoted in 2013 saying, “There are great athletes playing lacrosse in
California and it is beginning to show, thanks in part to individuals like Kyle
Harrison and Chris Packard (former players of his) relocating to the region and spreading their knowledge there.”69 Packard played for Pietramala at Cornell and is now the head lacrosse coach at St. Ignatius College Preparatory School in San
Francisco, while Harrison played professionally for the now-defunct LA Riptide and has been instrumental in growing the game around Los Angeles with efforts such as the LXM Tour, a showcase based lacrosse model which combined a touring professional lacrosse team and concerts.70 The work done by former players to spread lacrosse has undoubtedly been great for the game, as they have helped areas with little lacrosse tradition become major powers in the national scene. However, their efforts do tend to be located in suburban areas, which surround the economic centers that draw these players to new regions for work.
While the geographic spread of lacrosse across the country is good news for the future of the sport, there are still significant factors that have the potential to limit its growth. These issues will be addressed in the next chapter.
69 “Analyzing Hotbeds By the Numbers.” 70 Chris Korman, “West Coast Lacrosse Tour Has Roots in Baltimore,” Baltimore Sun, March 9, 2013, http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-03-09/business/bs-bz-lxm- pro-baltimore-ties-20130309_1_lxm-pro-warrior-lacrosse-team-stx, accessed April 28, 2016. 48
Chapter 3: Barriers to the Growth of Lacrosse
For participation in lacrosse to continue to grow, more players have to start playing the game as children and also have to want to keep playing through high school and college. As noted in Chapter 2, there are geographic barriers to participation in lacrosse. However, there are also other barriers that limit participation even in those geographic regions that offer opportunities to play.
First and foremost, playing lacrosse needs to be enjoyable. Youth players will not stick with a sport and aspire to play in high school and college if they are not having fun. This issue is not specific to lacrosse, but does apply to it. An article on the website PHIT America, which bills itself as “A movement for a fit and healthy
America,” posits that potentially many team sports have “gotten too serious, dominated by mothers and fathers, and are not as fun or experiential as some new activities.”71 This sheds some light on why participation in most traditional team sports is not growing, as mentioned in Chapter 2.
A study published by the Sport and Fitness Industry Association (then known as SGMA) with cooperation from ACTIVE Network from 2012 sought to “reveal key motivators and blockers for sports and activity participation overall.” According to the data collected in the report, 92% of children and 88% of teens start playing sports based on them having fun playing. These percentages decreased, but only slightly, when the question was shifted to why those surveyed said they continued to play a sport. Most kids when they choose a sport are not thinking about what they
71 “America’s 15 Fastest Growing Sports & Activities.” 49 might get out of it as adults, although it is possible that some do (or maybe their parents do). Knowing this information, it is apparent that in order to build and keep a large player base a sport must be fun and must market itself this way.72
Sports organizations have recognized the problems that can result from a sport ceasing to be fun, and some have implemented policies to prevent this from happening. For example, USA Hockey noted that their sport had a problem in retaining participants in 2009, as more than forty percent of players were quitting by the age of nine.73 In response, the organization adjusted their player development model to place an increased emphasis on fun. Some of the changes they made were to limit travel for the younger players and to introduce small-sided games so that players had more opportunity to handle the puck and participate in the play. This adjustment has been a success and was a factor behind hockey experiencing a 43% growth rate in six to twelve year old players between 2008 and
2013, according to a report from the Sports & Fitness Industry Organization.74
In September of 2015, US Lacrosse chose to follow in the footsteps of USA
Hockey and introduced the Lacrosse Athlete Development Model (LADM). The goals of the new model were to “square the pyramid” and make lacrosse more accessible and fun for more players, as well as to keep players playing for longer. This
72 Sport & Fitness Industry Association, The Journey of Sports Participation in America: 2012 Grassroots Sports Participation in America Study—Executive Summary (Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association and ACTIVE Network, 2012), 3. 73 “Small Ball.” 74 “Small Ball.” 50 theoretically will eventually lead to more players at higher levels as well as more recreational players at the youth level. The model can be seen in Figure 3.
Erin Smith, the director of education and training for US Lacrosse, explained the reasoning for the program by saying that, “everyone has said this has to be done.
There are a lot of hurdles with early recruiting, the tournament scene and kids being pushed to specialize early, but people have told us this is the right thing for the kids and the sport."75 One key aspect of the Lacrosse Athlete Development Model is small-sided competition, in other words playing in smaller areas with fewer players at a time rather than doing full field drills. According to many coaches, this is
75 “Small Ball.” 51 effective in skill development at higher levels, but it is also very valuable in teaching the game. In situations such as this, each player is able to be a more active participant, rather than standing still away from the ball. This allows each player to more fully experience “the freedom of the game” and “the creativity of the game,” which University of Virginia men’s lacrosse coach Dom Starsia highlights as the two key aspects of why lacrosse is so enjoyable to play.76
Therefore, small-sided games help maximize skill development and the amount of fun that players have. Smith, speaking for US Lacrosse, has been quoted as saying, “We want practices to be more competitive, we want them to have more touches, we want them to have more fun… We want the kids put first.”77 Other adaptations included in the LADM include playing with softer balls, so young players do not fear injury, and simplified rules. While immediate effects of the new development model are most apparent at the youth level, Smith notes that the model is not aimed only at younger players and that “when (players) reach the stage where competition is important, we want them to have all the skills so that they have the opportunity to be successful. We're looking forward to working with our national teams staff and events staff to expand the opportunities for players that want to achieve a higher level of play.”78
Making lacrosse fun is clearly important, but for the sport to continue to grow, it needs to be accessible to a wider demographic. Lacrosse is a difficult sport
76 “Virginia Coach Dom Starsia,” narrated by Eamon McAnaney, Time Room Bullseye, Lacrosse Magazine Podcasts, April 11, 2016, iTunes. 77 “Small Ball.” 78 “Small Ball.” 52 for those in lower socio-economic classes to play. Because of the need for specialized equipment, cost is a major hurdle in spreading lacrosse to new socio- economic demographics. As noted in Chapter 1, the cost of equipment is at minimum a few hundred dollars and can be as much as $1,000. To help overcome this hurdle, US Lacrosse is actively involved in the spread of the game. The foundation has a system of programs and grants to aid the growth of new lacrosse teams. These are paid for by membership fees and donations as well as partially subsidized by many equipment manufacturers. US Lacrosse offers materials, instructional information, and monetary support to get lacrosse programs off the ground. One of the available grants is the First Stick Grant, which pays for the equipment required to start a youth or high school lacrosse team. Between 2000 and July of 2014, the First Stick Program provided 1,028 grants “totaling more than
27,000 pieces of equipment giving hundreds of thousands of kids the opportunity to play” lacrosse.79 In 2015 US Lacrosse awarded 110 First Stick Grants to local organizations and high schools in thirty-six different states.80
Support from US Lacrosse, and other organizations, is needed in order to spread the sport. Due to the high cost of playing, many children from low-income families would have no access to lacrosse if it were not for the presence of initiatives like the First Stick Program. One program that has received a First Stick Grant was the Oakland Lacrosse Club, which received grants in 2010 and 2013. Their
79 US Lacrosse, “Game On: The National Campaign for Lacrosse,” YouTube, 4:42, July 10, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuEdMtS_xGk, accessed May 3, 2016. 80 Paul Ohanian, “US Lacrosse Awards 110 First Stick Program Grants,” US Lacrosse, October 6, 2016, http://www.uslacrosse.org/multimedia-center/press-releases- news/postid/1072/us-lacrosse-awards-110-first-stick-program-grants.aspx, accessed May 3, 2016. 53 executive director and co-founder, Kevin Kelley has said that, through grant money,
US Lacrosse has been “the biggest help and support of (the) program,” and the organization’s president, Ginger Mills, has said that, “we would not be where we are without the help of US lacrosse.”81 Recently, US Lacrosse has strategized that in order to make these start-up programs more viable, the programs need to become more interconnected. In addition, US Lacrosse is seeking to “forge strategic alliances with organizations to develop lacrosse in areas where it is not currently played.”82
Even while many in sport of lacrosse seek to reduce the financial burden of entry, another development in the sport is raising the financial burden. Recently, lacrosse has experienced growth in the number, and the importance, of club programs, which is a concerning trend as lacrosse seeks to become a more diverse sport. University of Virginia coach Dom Starsia expressed concern about the growth of club programs in a letter he shared in Lacrosse Magazine in 2014, saying, “while I believe the demographic for participation in our game has slowly begun to broaden and diversify, many of the club programs would seem a reach back to unfortunate stereotypes.” Whereas for the most part high school sports are either free or partially subsidized by the school, club lacrosse programs often cost thousands of dollars. Starsia and others worry that these costs create an uneven playing field, no pun intended, where players whose families have more resources have more of an opportunity to play on club teams and therefore also at the college level. The club
81 US Lacrosse, “Oakland Lacrosse Club: US Lacrosse Stick Stories,” YouTube, 7:45, December 1, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPT7b05hmZg, accessed May 3, 2016. 82 US Lacrosse, US Lacrosse Strategic Plan 2016-2019, 6. 54 system is set up in such a way that “those who can afford to join the most expensive club program and meet all of the affiliated costs… clearly have an advantage over those who cannot afford this same exposure.” A majority of club teams play in the summer and fall rather than the traditional spring season, so they have not replaced high school lacrosse, but they are increasingly becoming the only way to advance on to the college level. The reason for this is simple to understand. College coaches must attend their own games during the spring so cannot evaluate prospects during the regular season. Because coaches must use their offseason to evaluate prospective players, there is a clear advantage to the players on the club teams. The sound reasoning behind this shift in recruiting makes the trend unlikely to switch back, and players participating in lacrosse outside of the traditional season is not in and of itself problematic. In practice, however, club lacrosse is problematic in two chief ways (other than the fact that the tournament formats do not encourage sound team play but that is not relevant to this discussion). First of all, these programs are often run as elite travel teams. This begins weeding players out as early as elementary school. The second issue is that of money. For many families, the cost of playing for a club team is prohibitive. In addition to the fee to join, families also must pay for transportation to practices and tournaments, as well as accommodations once they arrive at tournaments. For any given summer or fall, this could total up to as much as five thousand dollars, a steep price to pay every summer from the U-11 level up through high school.83
83 Dom Starsia, “A (Second) Letter To Parents,” Lacrosse Magazine, November 30, 2014, http://www.laxmagazine.com/college_men/DI/201415/news/112514 _dom_starsia_a_second_letter_to_parents, accessed April 28, 2016. 55
Despite the existence of some programs aimed at reducing the financial barriers for playing lacrosse, the majority of the players are still from the upper socioeconomic classes. As a result, there is less diversity on college lacrosse teams than is the case for many other collegiate sports. Some, including Kevin Kiley of USA
Today, have posited that the growth in college lacrosse is nothing but a ploy by colleges to attract more upper middle class suburban students. This seems more likely to be the case at the Division Two or Three level, but could potentially factor into decisions at the Division One level as well. In 2012, Kiley wrote that lacrosse players tend to be “full-pay students” and come from households, which are wealthier and more educated than the American average.
The claim that adding lacrosse is purely a business decision by college is a pessimistic point of view to be sure, but there is merit to it. W. Kent Barnds, the vice president for enrollment, communication, and planning of Augustana College, a liberal arts college in Illinois which has recently added both men’s and women’s lacrosse teams, went so far as to admit that adding lacrosse was a deliberate tactic to “compete more effectively for a smaller demographic” and added that they were
“really trying to get more than our fair share of a shrinking demographic." In these quotes, Barnds seems to be alluding the shrinking of the middle class, something that has been talked about ad nauseam recently. Kevin Kiley notes in his article that,
“middle-class suburban students, who are not only able but willing to pay the high price for private education, used to be liberal arts colleges’ bread and butter. Now they’re increasingly lured to other types of institutions.” For many small private colleges to stay viable, they need to continue to attract students, such as the ones 56
Kiley mentions, who have the means to pay the ever-rising cost of college tuition.
Many schools, like Augustana, have decided that one way to do this is to attract student athletes, specifically in sports where players tend to come from more privileged backgrounds. Bob Cook, a contributor for Forbes, cites a statistic that “less than 10% of lacrosse players come from households with incomes of less than
$50,000, and nearly 75% of all lacrosse-playing families value their primary residence at $200,000 or more.” This clearly shows why attracting lacrosse-playing student athletes would be attractive to a college, and why many colleges continue to add lacrosse programs even as other NCAA sports are being cut at many institutions.
Colleges are using lacrosse as “a weapon in the fight to keep” full-pay students. As
Cook says, many parents are “happy to pay (expensive tuition) so their kids can be called college athletes.”84
According to Kiley, the fight to keep middle class students is most applicable to the Midwest. This is because, as of 2012, the number of full-pay students in the region was projected to shrink according to research done by Western Interstate
Commission for Higher Education.85 This projection is likely based upon the decline of the manufacturing sector in the region as many jobs go overseas and unions have become weaker. The increased competition for full-pay students in the Midwest is almost certainly a factor in that region being home to the highest growth percentage
84 Bob Cook, “Small Colleges Want Your Rich, White, Lacrosse-Playing Children,” Forbes, April 4, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2012/04/04/small- colleges-want-your-rich-white-lacrosse-playing-children/#7b6888f621be, accessed April 28, 2016; Kevin Kiley, “Colleges Use Lacrosse to Recapture Suburban Students,” USA Today, April 4, 2012, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-04-04/liberal-arts- colleges-lacrosse-students/54002080/1, accessed April 28, 2016. 85 “Colleges Use Lacrosse to Recapture Suburban Students.” 57 of men’s lacrosse programs between 2006 and 2016. In addition the numbers are particularly high in Division Two and Three, due to the fact that these tend to be smaller private colleges, which are more dependent on full-pay students. This can be seen in Table 16.
Both Cook and Kiley also write that the demographic being sought is white in addition to being suburban and middle class, although it is important to note that they do not claim that colleges’ tactics are intentionally exclusionary or racist.
Presumably, colleges adding lacrosse would be very open to attracting a suburban middle class demographic that is racially diverse, however, a majority of lacrosse playing families are white. The issue of race in lacrosse will be further addressed in
Chapter 4.
58
Chapter 4: The Issue of Race in Lacrosse
In the early part of the twenty-first century, lacrosse has grown at amazing rates. An article on the popular website Buzzfeed from 2014 deemed it to be the fastest growing sport in America based on data from the high school level and proclaimed that it could be “America’s sport of the future.”86 The article also detailed the sport’s growth in new regions claiming that this was evidence that lacrosse was bucking its “preppy” reputation. However, what this article does not say is that despite the geographic spread of lacrosse, it has been slow to change in terms of demographics. The sport has clearly become more popular throughout the country, but it is important to question the extent to which the growing participation by more people across the country in lacrosse is the same thing as true democratization. Gender, ethnicity, and race are all areas that bear investigating regarding lacrosse’s inclusivity, or lack thereof. However, I will focus on race and the presence of African Americans in lacrosse in this chapter.
In the words of Chazz Woodson, an African American lacrosse player who played at Brown University and for Team USA, “in order for this great game to take off, there's got to be a continuous dialogue about how best to make this game accessible and appealing to the largest audience possible. Anything short of that makes lacrosse simply a glorified social club, with membership requirements that some people will inherently never meet, and that others will choose not to buy
86 John Templon, “Lacrosse is Actually America’s Fastest-Growing Sport,” Buzzfeed, June 30, 2014, https://www.buzzfeed.com/johntemplon/lacrosse-fastest-growing- sport?utm_term=.as86qnKD5N#.cq86P5ZymR, accessed May 1, 2016. 59 into.”87 The lacrosse community and governing bodies of the sport have repeatedly emphasized that improving diversity and inclusion is important. If the sport does not open itself up more intentionally and completely to players of different backgrounds, it will fail to fully diversify and be representative of the country as a whole. The sport of lacrosse needs to actively alter its image in order to open itself up to new groups of players. A failure to do this could lead to a continuation of the elitism within the sport despite its wider reach.
Lacrosse needs to become more inclusive and representative of America as a whole because wider inclusion of minorities and women in sports like lacrosse helps to reinforce a new national narrative of racial integration. Rather than viewing lacrosse as a singular sport, it should be viewed as part of a wider social phenomenon of increasing equality and diversity. The new American national narrative began to emerge after World War II and it works to challenge and undo the narrative that was created by white elite, like George Beers, in the late nineteenth century. Instead of a nationalism based on white elite domination, the new narrative is about a pluralistic country in which many groups participate. Jackie
Robinson in baseball and Tiger Woods in golf symbolize this new racial ideal. Jackie
Robinson was the first player to break Major League Baseball’s color barrier when he started for the Brooklyn Dodgers in April of 1947. His debut was possible because in the aftermath of World War II, there was a new focus in the U.S. on civil rights, likely in reaction to the Holocaust and its ideology of racial purity. Even
87 Chazz Woodson, “Race Matters and the Discussion That Needs to be Had,” Lacrosse Magazine, December 5, 2012, http://www.laxmagazine.com/genrel/120412_chazz_woodson_on_race_lacrosse_an d_inclusion, accessed April 28, 2016. 60 though more people were beginning to accept that discrimination, including racial discrimination, was wrong, changing beliefs is never easy. Sports provided a way for non-whites to demonstrate their equality with whites in a way that was less threatening to the general population. As John Kelly writes, “Jackie Robinson was the first black man most US whites ever really knew, or at least the first they ever did not not-know. The first who was not one of ‘them’ but one of ‘us’. The first black person they identified with. The first through whose eyes they chose to see the world.”88 More and more African American athletes joined the ranks of professional athletes in the years after Jackie Robinson, but the next major turning point was not until Tiger Woods became a household name. He won the Masters tournament in
1997 and was the dominant player in golf for over ten years. Although Tiger Woods himself chose not to engage in discussions about his race or about racial discrimination, others did. “Woods might not regard himself as an African
American, but the rest of the world apparently did and he was hailed not only as the first black man to win a golf major, but as a someone who had attacked and defeated the cherished beliefs, values and practices of what was considered a white man’s sport.”89 Robinson and Woods, and others like them, have broken down barriers and changed the views of what athletes look like. Lacrosse still has not had a transcendent minority figure such as these two, but one in more than likely coming soon.
88 John Kelly, “Integrating America: Jackie Robinson, Critical Events and Baseball Black and White,” The International Journal of the History of Sport 22:6 (November 2005): 1030. 89 Ellis Cashmore, “Tiger Woods and the New Racial Order,” Current Sociology 56:4 (July 2008): 624. 61
Inclusion clearly benefits the demographic that is being included, but lacrosse seeking out diversity is not only about helping minority groups, it is also done with the understanding that diversity is beneficial for the population and group as a whole. This is important to keep in mind so that the efforts do not come across as uncomfortably paternalistic. In the case of lacrosse, the sport has the ability to provide numerous benefits and opportunities to those who are lucky enough to play. A release from US Lacrosse advertises some of the sport’s benefits as self-discipline, teamwork, confidence, higher grades, and increased college attendance rates.90 Just as valuable, though, is that including players from varied backgrounds and circumstances “makes the group stronger,” in the words of Mike
Murphy, the men’s lacrosse coach at the University of Pennsylvania.91 “Diversity brings remarkable vitality and energy” to teams and organizations.92
Despite the obvious benefits of inclusion, the widening of lacrosse demographics has been slow. According to data from the NCAA, in the 1999-2000 academic year there were 6,409 male collegiate lacrosse players and 5,778 of them were white, which is over 90%. The most recent data available is for the 2014-15 academic year, where the number of total players skyrocketed to 13,165, of which
11,250 were white. The percentage of white male players decreased to 85.5%, nearly 5% less than it was fifteen years earlier. These numbers are all in contrast to
90 Muller, Kira, “The Dream Drive Impact: First Stick and Team USA,” US Lacrosse, April 3, 2014, http://www.uslacrosse.org/multimedia-center/press-releases- news/postid/575/infographic-the-dream-drive-impact-first-stick-and-team- usa.aspx, accessed May 3, 2016. 91 US Lacrosse, “The Impact of Inclusion in Lacrosse,” YouTube video, 3:59, January 20, 2016, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i50oBZPNdFA, accessed May 1, 2016. 92 US Lacrosse, “The Impact of Inclusion.” 62
America as a whole, where the population was 72.4% white as of the 2010 census.
The demographics for lacrosse are also significantly different than for other college sports, with whites comprising 50.7% of football players and 41.1% of basketball players. 93
From 1999-2000 to 2014-2015, the percentage of African-American males playing collegiate lacrosse was the fastest growing, but still only grew by 2%, up from 1.5% to 3.5%, making African American males the fastest growing demographic in the men’s sport. This increase is representative of about 350 more
African-American student-athletes playing than there were fifteen years earlier.94
This is a sign of progress, but also a sign that there is much work to be done to improve diversity because even with the addition of a whole team of only African-
American players, after Hampton University adds a men’s lacrosse team, the percentage of African American players in college lacrosse is unlikely to rise even to
5%.
Lacrosse has been much slower than other sports to catch on with African
Americans. The reason behind this is twofold. One reason centers around the cost to play and the potential for playing professionally. Harry Edwards, an African
American sociologist, has argued that a problem in African American communities is
93 National Collegiate Athletic Association, “Sport Sponsorship, Participation and Demographics Search,” retrieved from http://web1.ncaa.org/rgdSearch/exec/main, accessed February 15, 2016; Clare Lochary, “A Roundtable Discussion on Diversity in Lacrosse,” Lacrosse Magazine, November 28, 2011, http://www.laxmagazine.com/genrel/112811_work_in_progress_a_roundtable_disc ussion_on_diversity_in_lacrosse, accessed May 1, 2016. 94 “Sport Sponsorship, Participation and Demographics Search.” 63 that there is a “single-minded pursuit of sports” as a way to a better life.95 This pursuit lends itself to a problematic viewpoint that sports should be played based on their future earning potential for the player, and comes at the expense of educational and cultural advancement, thereby hurting more people than helping.
However, Edwards has somewhat recanted his position and admits that, because of the disproportionate emphasis on sports, sports can be the “last hook and handle” to keep young people on the right path.96 By this he means that by playing sports young athletes can acquire life skills, and in order to play sports they are given the incentive to work harder in school. An article in the publication, The Root, claimed that, “for a long time, when it came to African Americans and sports, it was a safe bet to follow the money. The trail ended at what it cost to play. Or what one could get paid for playing.”97 This approach to sport essentially would make it worthless to play lacrosse. Lacrosse requires a substantial amount of equipment and large areas to play, which tend to come hand in hand with higher participation fees, which can make the sport prohibitively costly to many families, regardless of race.
The issue of cost is becoming even more prohibitive to many families as lacrosse has increasingly “shifted from a high school-based sport to being club- centric.”98 As discussed in Chapter 2, these club programs are expensive, raising the cost to play lacrosse and “these high costs, of course, limit access only to those who
95 David K. Wiggins & Patrick B. Miller, The Unlevel Playing Field: A Documentary History of the African American Experience in Sport (Urbana IL: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 440. 96 Wiggins, Unlevel Playing Field, 440. 97 Deron Snyder, “Basketball, Out; Lacrosse, In?”, The Root, May 31, 2015, http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/05/for_more_and_more_african_a merican_kids_is_basketball_out_and_lacrosse_in.html, accessed April 28, 2016. 98 “Long-Awaited Move Toward Diversity.” 64 can afford them or to those families willing to go into debt to develop their child’s sports prowess.”99 In turn, “those on the economic margins are shut out, moving to sports such as basketball where the financial obligation is negligible to develop the skills.”100 In addition, professional lacrosse leagues are nowhere near as developed or profitable as leagues in many other sports. Salaries in Major League Lacrosse
(MLL), according to CNN Money, typically fall between $10,000 and $20,000 dollars.
Using $15,000 as the average, a typical professional lacrosse player would be earning roughly 133 times less than a typical professional basketball player, based on the median NBA salary for the 2015-2016 season.101 If it is in fact true that
African Americans tend to be more interested in sports that have a future financial incentive, then lacrosse would not be an appealing option. And as far as demographics go in professional lacrosse, as recently as the 2012 season there were only three African American players in the top professional lacrosse league.102
But the reason lacrosse has been slow to catch on with African Americans has just as much to do with the sport’s association with white elites as it does to money.
This association has never been more visible than it was in the aftermath of the
Duke lacrosse scandal in 2006. The scandal was the result of a claim made by an
African American exotic dancer that she was raped by three white members of the
99 D. Stanley Eitzen, Fair and Foul: Beyond the Myths and Paradoxes of Sport (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 115. 100 Eitzen, Fair and Foul, 115. 101 Ahiza Garcia, “The Pro Athletes With Full-Time Day Jobs,” CNN Money, September 28, 2015, http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/28/smallbusiness/major-league- lacrosse-salaries/, accessed April 28, 2016; “2015-16 NBA Player Contracts,” Basketball Reference, http://www.basketball- reference.com/contracts/players.html, accessed May 1, 2016. 102 “Race Matters and the Discussion That Needs to be Had.” 65
Duke University men’s lacrosse team after the team had hired her to dance at a party. The accused being privileged, white, student-athletes at an elite southern college and the accuser being a poor African American woman made the case racially and socio-economically charged. Attitudes toward the case and the accused players was starkly divided between those who believed that they could not have possibly done it and those who believed that the case represented another in a long line of injustices done to the African American community at the hands of the white elite. Because the accused athletes were lacrosse players, the case further tied the sport of lacrosse to the white elite and highlighted a divide between the sport and the African American community. Duke men’s lacrosse coach John Danowski said in
2016 that, “there was a bit of a disconnect between Durham and Duke the African
American community and perceived elite lacrosse community the fact that the team was mostly white,” which he suggested was a factor in the response to the rape case and had persisted on even after the charges were dropped.103 The players were eventually completely vindicated and found innocent, but not before the case brought a great deal of negative attention to the sport of lacrosse, and created a narrative that the culture of lacrosse was defined by entitlement and the phrase
“play hard, party hard.”104
The cause of the racial divide in lacrosse is rooted as far back as the 1860s when Canadian nationalists decided to construct lacrosse as an elite gentlemanly
103 “Duke Coach John Danowski,” narrated by Eamon McAnaney, Time Room Bullseye, Lacrosse Magazine Podcasts, March 1, 2016, iTunes. 104 Greg Garber, “Lacrosse Culture Crisis: Play Hard, Party Hard,” ESPN, May 25, 2006, http://espn.go.com/college-sports/columns/story?id=2456640, accessed May 3, 2016. 66 pastime, which resulted in it becoming and remaining a white sport. This image of lacrosse persisted, with the players being seen more as members of an elite social club than players in other sports. In contrast, football and basketball, which were predominantly white sports in the past, have become much more open and diverse beginning in the middle of the twentieth century. Lacrosse’s culture, as well as its white image, are still very much issues that must be overcome as it seeks to become more inclusive and diverse. As Woodson claimed, it is difficult to make the claim that lacrosse is “open to anyone, but have a dress code that only a select few want to wear,” essentially making the point that sport of lacrosse cannot expect everyone to conform to what the sport has traditionally been, but rather that the game needs to evolve and change as the demographics of the country change.105
The goal of equalizing racial representation in lacrosse has been gaining traction in the past few years. The lacrosse community has increasingly expressed an interest in diversifying its population and growing the game to a wider audience.
However expressing this sentiment and change actually being achieved are two different things. Chazz Woodson explained this by saying that, “from the inside out,
(the lacrosse community is) very inclusive. From the outside in, it's very exclusive.”106 It is important for the sport of lacrosse to figure out how to become more inclusive and more welcoming. Quint Kessenich, a former All-American goalie for NCAA powerhouse John’s Hopkins University and the most visible personality and voice in lacrosse today, wrote in his weekly column for the Baltimore Sun that,
“improving diversity (in lacrosse) must be addressed” and added that, “it's been 35
105 “Race Matters and the Discussion That Needs to be Had.” 106 “Race Matters and the Discussion That Needs to be Had.” 67 years since the "Ten Bears" at Morgan State (a historically black college), and very little has changed.”107 The acknowledgement by Kessenich that not much has changed in terms of diversity since the 1980s is as encouraging as it is sobering. It is unfortunate to admit that degree of a lack of progress, but identifying the problem will hopefully lead to remedying it. This is the beginning of a conversation the sport needs to have; it is not an end and simply stating the problem is not enough. Luckily, steps are being made and the attempts toward progress seem genuine.
Despite it being a majority white sport, African Americans, albeit in small numbers, have played lacrosse for a number of years. Some of these players have become key figures in the movement toward increasing diversity. They play an important role because they can give children role models and people to look up to.
The website of former Brown University and US national team lacrosse player Chazz
Woodson features a feed of fan messages. Looking through these it is easy to see how valuable role models can be to aspiring athletes. One of the messages reads as follows:
Hey Man. You’re a very big inspiration to me I remembered the first time I saw you on TV playing lacrosse. I was so amazed at the athletic ability and everything. I was so excited to watch you… I’m a big fan of you and I just wanted to say thank you for being a big inspiration on my heart. A lot of my friends were making fun of me and my two best friends because we said we’re playing lacrosse and we were the only three African American players on the team. They had said it’s a white man’s sport. And that’s when it hit me. My friends and I last season had proved them wrong and showed its not just a white man’s sport. It’s a sport for everyone. Doesn’t matter what race you are… We would always talk about how great you are and how much of an inspiration you are to us.108
107 “Long-Awaited Move Toward Diversity.” 108 “From The Fans,” http://www.chazzwoodson.com/live/, accessed April 28, 2016. 68
Children tend to look up to people to whom they can relate, so having successful minority players and coaches is critical to growing lacrosse within minority communities. The entry on Woodson’s site makes it clear how great of an impact having relatable stars can have on children; it can be the difference between trying a sport or not, continuing a sport or dropping it. Artie Spruill West, the executive director of Charm City (Baltimore) Lacrosse believes strongly that players in that program “benefit from seeing the images of Myles Jones at Duke and Hampton players taking the field together."109 There have been important minority role models in the past, such as NFL legend and former Syracuse lacrosse player Jim
Brown and there are increasingly more such as Kyle Harrison, a 2005 graduate of
Johns Hopkins University and the only African American winner of the Tewaaraton
Trophy for the best player in collegiate lacrosse.
In recent years, players have the privilege of increased exposure to diverse role models in lacrosse, and many have been taking advantage of it. The increase in individual exposure is likely due to expanding coverage by traditional media combined with the rise of social media. These developments have created an environment where players have the platform to become role models and spur real changes. This environment is aided by the lacrosse world claiming to be ready for minority players. In the words of Duke University men’s lacrosse coach John
Danowski, there is “a great opportunity (for a player) to be that guy to turn peoples heads a little bit that this is a great sport that this is something that young African
109 “Long-Awaited Move Toward Diversity.” 69
Americans can aspire to.”110 This recent receptivity on the part of existing teams and coaches reflects the liberalizing of race relations in the United States during the latter half of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries.
One player who has embraced the opportunity of being a role model for young minority lacrosse players is Myles Jones. Jones is an African American player who was labeled by the publication Inside Lacrosse as “The Face of College Lacrosse” in 2015. While still in college, he has already been actively participating in clinics to bring lacrosse to the inner-cities in both Baltimore and New York. Jones clearly understands what he describes as the “power and importance of a tangible kinda
(sic) idol.”111 Jones’s “eye-catching ability combined with his infectious personality is what the sport desperately needs,” and when young minority players see players like Jones having success, it will give them a goal to dream of and to work toward.112
Many former players have been actively involved in growing the game, either overall, or specifically in minority communities. Kyle Harrison was a co-founder of the California-based LXM Pro Tour, an alternative professional option to Major
League Lacrosse. LXM has been referred to as a “roving lacrosse festival” and was essentially a barnstorming tour of two teams that travelled to play games in different cities, mostly on the West Coast and other non-traditional lacrosse areas.
These games were combined with concerts, youth games, and lacrosse clinics so as to attract more fans and make games into events.113 The LXM Pro Tour was home to
110 “Duke Coach John Danowski.” 111 “Duke’s Myles Jones,” narrated by Eamon McAnaney, Time Room Bullseye, Lacrosse Magazine Podcasts, April 4, 2016, iTunes. 112 “Long-Awaited Move Toward Diversity.” 113 “West Coast Lacrosse Tour.” 70 far more African American players than the MLL, which as mentioned earlier, was home to just three African American players as recently as the 2012 season.114 In an article from 2013, Harrison expressed a great deal of pride that half of his LXM team was African American and added that when “you’re not the only one, you’re not the token black lacrosse player on a team, you start to feel more comfortable.”115 In this regard, the LXM Pro Tour was very beneficial for improving diversity in lacrosse.
The addition of a men’s lacrosse team at Hampton University, a historically black college, in 2016 was a monumental step toward increased diversity in lacrosse. On Hampton, Quint Kessenich wrote, “Let's celebrate this team, its entrepreneurial spirit and its inclusion for what it represents for the future.”116
Contrary to how it has been portrayed by some media outlets, Hampton is not the first historically black college to field a lacrosse team, but it is the first since Morgan
State disbanded their program in 1981, and it is the first to do so at the Division One level. The coach at Hampton, Lloyd Carter, was a player on those famed Morgan
State teams, nicknamed the “Ten Bears,” which were “one of the best programs in the country, regardless of color.”117 Carter has grand visions for what the Hampton program can become, saying “this is special because we are a part of history
114 “Race Matters and the Discussion That Needs to be Had.” 115 Michael Cohen, “As Lacrosse Grows, the Diversity of Players Remains Largely Unchanged,” New York Times, May 24, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/25/sports/as-lacrosse-keeps-growing-the- diversity-of-players-remains-largely-unchanged.html, accessed May 1, 2016. 116 “Long-Awaited Move Toward Diversity.” 117 Mike Preston, “Hampton Lacrosse: The First HBCU D1 Team Gears Up for First Game,” NCAA, http://www.ncaa.com/news/lacrosse-men/article/2016-02- 12/hampton-lacrosse-first-hbcu-di-team-gears-first-game, accessed April 28, 2016. 71 again.”118 To build up his program, Carter has said that he plans on enlisting the help of famous African American players, such as Kyle Harrison who was mentioned earlier and whose father played at Morgan State like Carter, to help him in recruiting young players to choose Hampton. This will be extremely beneficial in building the program, as Harrison’s name carries considerable weight in the lacrosse community. The Hampton program has already faced challenges and will continue to do so as they attempt to build their program, so perspective and patience will be needed. One of their players, Darrel Kidd, perhaps put it best when he said, “we also have to realize there’s a reason we’re here and we’re laying the foundation for this program to grow into something great.”119 Therefore it is encouraging that the college’s administration has put their support firmly behind the program and seems to understand the level of patience and perseverance that it will take to become competitive and challenge the status quo. One of the team’s star players, Julian
Edwards, summed this up by saying that “there is an opportunity to make history here, a chance for us to show that African Americans can play this game.”120
Some people, including Jim Brown, view Hampton’s addition of lacrosse as indicative of greater overall progress toward equality. In an interview with ESPN,
Brown said, “Hampton is exploring, educating, and offering opportunities that’s
(sic) off the beaten path. That starts with lacrosse and, where it ends, nobody knows because there’s so many things that the African American community has not had an opportunity to participate in, and if lacrosse can be one that opens the door, then
118 “Hampton Lacrosse.” 119 “How a Grieving Mom Achieved Her Son’s Dream.” 120 “Hampton Lacrosse.” 72
I’m all for it.”121 Brown’s notion is backed up by Hampton University’s president, Dr.
William R. Harvey, who explained the addition of lacrosse by saying that “Hampton has pioneered so many things, even going back to our founder (Samuel Chapman
Armstrong), who pioneered Native American education. Let's look at some things that aren't traditionally in black schools, such as soccer and lacrosse.”122 Harvey has made it clear that adding a lacrosse team has everything to do with it being viewed as a white sport. Through a historically black college playing lacrosse, Harvey is attempting to “diversify the kind of outlets our students have” while helping to break down the barrier between lacrosse and the African American community.123 It is a bold roll of the dice to put money into a program that is likely to struggle at first, but as Brown said, “the big picture is that African Americans should participate in everything.”124 Harvey seems to wholeheartedly agree that the diversification of lacrosse should be looked at as a part of a broader context of inclusion in America.
Hampton University’s impact on diversity through offering opportunities to play collegiate lacrosse and to attend college is clear. However just as important is that the addition of the program has attracted media attention to diversity in the sport of lacrosse and has raised the sport’s profile across America. The lacrosse media is still relatively small at this point in time despite the growth of the sport.
Lacrosse is not typically covered by most national news outlets, including television
121 ESPN, “Jim Brown on Significance of Hampton Lacrosse,” ESPN video, 3:43, February 13, 2016, http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=14770193, accessed April 28, 2016. 122 Dave Johnson, “Hampton University Lacrosse Set to Make Historic Debut,” Daily Press, February 12, 2016, http://www.dailypress.com/sports/dp-spt-hu-lacrosse- 0212-20160211-story.html, accessed April 28, 2016. 123 “Hampton University Lacrosse Set to Make Historic Debut.” 124 ESPN, “Jim Brown on Significance of Hampton Lacrosse.” 73 and print, so much of its coverage comes from two sport-specific magazines: Inside
Lacrosse and Lacrosse Magazine. As a result, only those actively seeking out stories about lacrosse are exposed to them. The few exceptions have tended to be news stories such as the Duke lacrosse scandal and the murder of a women’s lacrosse player at the University of Virginia, which naturally cast a very negative light on the sport. This made the attention paid to Hampton University lacrosse even more important and valuable due to its positive nature. America’s preeminent sports news broadcasting network, ESPN, has done a number of features on the team and even broadcasted their flagship show, SportsCenter, live from the field at Hampton’s first game on February 13th, 2016. According to ESPN, SportsCenter “averages up to
115 million viewers a month” so a whole show focused on lacrosse and its improving diversity reached a very large audience, likely exposing some viewers to lacrosse for the first time and maybe even spurring some into trying the sport.125
Building on their efforts to grow the sport of lacrosse, in 2014 US Lacrosse introduced the Diversity and Inclusion National Grant Program to address making the sport more inclusive and to create opportunities for diverse populations. The goal of this program is “encouraging and empowering the development of lacrosse participation in underrepresented communities.”126 In order to continue to increase the opportunities for minority and urban populations in lacrosse and to better serve these populations, US Lacrosse along with a number of other organizations formed
125 “ESPN, Inc. Fact Sheet,” ESPN Media Zone, http://espnmediazone.com/us/espn- inc-fact-sheet/, accessed April 28, 2016. 126 “Diversity & Inclusion National Grant Program,” US Lacrosse, http://www.uslacrosse.org/resources/diversity-inclusion/diversity-inclusion- national-grant-program.aspx, accessed April 28, 2016. 74 the Urban Lacrosse Alliance. The alliance is designed to facilitate the sharing of information and successful strategies between organizations so that they can learn from one another and improve. If is the belief of the alliance “that each program can benefit from an open forum where ideas and tactics can flow freely in order to maximize sustainability efforts in each urban lacrosse program.”127
Initiatives under the umbrella of the Diversity and Inclusion National Grant
Program have contributed to a number of success stories including Oakland
Lacrosse Club and Charm City (Baltimore) Youth Lacrosse. Many of these programs use lacrosse as a tool to teach life skills and help kids reach their academic potential.
Lacrosse can be an ideal vehicle to aid at-risk children and teach them valuable lessons. Many at-risk children “struggle with food insecurity, be it inconsistent meals or lack of access to healthy food options. Others are dealing with an unstable home life or have experienced violence in their neighborhoods.”128 Therefore, for these children “resilience is the key to unlocking the future,” and according to LaNon
Gillins, co-founder of Oakland Lacrosse, “lacrosse teaches resilience…because you’re going to drop the ball about a thousand times before you get good at catching it.”129
Harlem Lacrosse and Leadership is a strong example for the success a lacrosse program can have with disadvantaged or minority children. The program
127 Paul Ohanian, “New Urban Alliance Forms Partnerships to Expand the Game,” US Lacrosse, January 28, 2014, http://www.uslacrosse.org/multimedia-center/press- releases-news/postid/489/us-lacrosse-among-founding-members-of-new-urban- lacrosse-alliance.aspx, accessed May 3, 2016. 128 Lane Errington, “Unmasking Their Potential: Oakland Lacrosse Club,” US Lacrosse, November 30, 2016, http://www.uslacrosse.org/multimedia- center/press-releases-news/postid/1098/unmasking-their-potential-oakland- lacrosse-club.aspx, accessed May 3, 2016. 129 “Unmasking Their Potential.” 75 was founded in 2011 and is a school-based program where the coaches also serve as teachers in the schools so that they can work with players throughout the day. The foundation believes that “The presence of a full-time lacrosse coach, academic tutor and mentor reinforces the notion that lessons learned in lacrosse are applicable throughout the school day” and in life in general.130
Motivation is a key aspect of why people compete and play sports. According to Stephanie Hatch, Danielle Thomsen, and Jennifer J. Waldron from the University of Northern Iowa, athletes’ motivations fall into two distinct categories. Their article for the Association for Applied Sport Psychology states that the two types of motivation are intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation consists of being motivated by internal rewards such as having fun or getting in shape. Extrinsic motivation lies in acquiring external rewards such as trophies, attention, money, or scholarships.131 Both of these motivations apply to lacrosse, even though playing the sport will never lead to a multi-million dollar professional contract, as can be the case in sports like baseball, football, and basketball. The issue of fun (an intrinsic motivator) was addressed in Chapter 2, so that leaves the issue of what extrinsic motivations there might be for playing lacrosse.
One of the ways that the sport of lacrosse has chosen to market itself toward prospective players is as an avenue toward acquiring cultural capital, which is a blanket term for non-monetary assets that can aid upward mobility. Statistically,
130 “About Harlem Lacrosse,” Harlem Lacrosse and Leadership, http://www.harlemlacrosse.org/about/, accessed April 28, 2016. 131 Stephanie Hatch, Danielle Thomsen, and Jennifer J. Waldron, “Extrinsic Rewards and Motivation,” Association for Applied Sport Psychology, http://www.appliedsportpsych.org/resource-center/resources-for- coaches/extrinsic-rewards-and-motivation/, accessed April 28, 2016. 76 lacrosse players are more likely to be able to play collegiately than are athletes in other sports, and once in college, lacrosse players are more likely to graduate than most other athletes as well as other students. While it does not apply to everyone who plays, being an athlete does have the potential to move the individual up in social class.”132 The other way is that the sport is marketed as simply being fun. As
Virginia coach Dom Starsia puts it, lacrosse is “just an easy game to love… it’s an easy game to enjoy playing.”133 By marketing itself in these two distinct ways, the sport of lacrosse satisfies both channels of motivation, extrinsic and intrinsic, thereby potentially appealing to a broader base of players.
It seems unlikely that many children dream of playing professional lacrosse when they grow up as a way of improving their standing, as the professional leagues are still relatively young and unprofitable compared to other sports leagues. The most prominent professional league, Major League Lacrosse, was founded in 1999 and as of the 2016 season has only nine teams. CNN Money has reported that the average salary in Major League Lacrosse falls between $10,000-$20,000 and that starting salaries are about $7,000.134 In fact, most if not all of the players in the league work other jobs. However, attending college is a tangible reward that is made more accessible by playing lacrosse, which can add motivation to play lacrosse rather than another sport. This is something that Myles Jones stressed in an interview, that “lacrosse is a really fun sport with the opportunities that it brings you, you can go college and you can do so much with the game of lacrosse other than
132 Eitzen, Fair and Foul, 199. 133 “Virginia Coach Dom Starsia.” 134 “The Pro Athletes With Full-Time Day Jobs.” 77 just playing for two and half hours a day.”135 According to data provided by the
NCAA, men’s lacrosse is the sport in which the highest percentage of those who play in high school go on to play in college. Out of men who played lacrosse in high school, 11.9% went on to play in college at all three divisions combined. Of these,
2.9% played at the Division One level, a percentage that is second only to ice hockey.
The Division One percentage is important to note since Division One teams are able to offer the most athletic scholarship money.
In addition, Division One collegiate student athletes are more likely to graduate than students who are not members of an athletic team. Based on Federal
Graduation rates, the incoming class of Division One student athletes of 2008 graduated at a 2% higher rate than the general student-body across all Division One institutions. White male athletes graduated at a rate equal to white male non- athletes, however for African American males there is a stark difference between the two rates: 53% for student athletes versus 41% for non-athletes. Based on this data, playing collegiate sports is particularly beneficial to minority students working toward the goal of graduating from college. The NCAA also measures graduation rates through a measure known as Graduation Success Rate (GSR). This measure differs from the federal rates in a few ways including accounting for transferring students, which results in the percentages being higher across the board. The overall GSR for student athletes in the 2005-2008 cohort was 83% but was only
78% for men. The GSR for men’s lacrosse was 88%, which was higher than the overall percentage and ranked third out of eighteen sports. The elevated graduation
135 “Duke’s Myles Jones.” 78 rates of men’s lacrosse compared to the rates of sports such as football and basketball, which have rates around 15% lower, suggest that increased inclusion in men’s lacrosse would be beneficial to minority populations.136
This offers an interesting glimpse into one reason why some players choose lacrosse over some other sports. Anecdotally, as a lacrosse player, I never dreamed of playing professional lacrosse when I was growing up, but college lacrosse was absolutely on my radar, something I think is true for many players. The path to college by playing a sport is also an attractive end goal, even if it not as flashy as making it to a major professional league.
Harlem Lacrosse and Leadership (HLL) emphasizes that one of the reasons why the program chose the sport of lacrosse as a vehicle for improving lives of children from disadvantaged backgrounds is that “a young lacrosse player’s hero is not a ‘pro’ who skipped college, but a collegiate student-athlete.”137 In this way, the lack of a developed professional system prevents young players from setting their sights on unrealistic goals and forces them to focus on academics if they want lacrosse to be able to help them. In addition, the foundation notes that “our nation's top secondary schools and universities actively seek talented lacrosse players from disadvantaged communities.”138 HLL seeks to teach students life skills in addition to lacrosse skills so that they can have access to the same collegiate opportunities that elite whites have.
136 NCAA Research Staff, “Trends in Graduation Success Rates and Federal Graduation Rates at NCAA Division I Institutions,” Last modified October 2015, http://web1.ncaa.org/app_data/GSR/nablus15/GSR_Fed_Trends.pdf, accessed May 2, 2016. 137 “About Harlem Lacrosse.” 138 “About Harlem Lacrosse.” 79
Despite gains in attracting a more diverse population, lacrosse is still a predominately white sport, played mostly by those in the more privileged socioeconomic classes. No one is going to make a fortune playing lacrosse, but this does not mean there are not important benefits that can be gained from the game.
Playing lacrosse in high school increases the likelihood of playing in college, and playing lacrosse in college increases the likelihood of graduating. Earning a college degree paves the way to better paying jobs and higher socioeconomic status. White players have been taking advantage of this formula for years, and it is essential that lacrosse actively work to provide these same opportunities to a more diverse group of players. The increased numbers of high profile African American players is particularly important as they can be positive role models for children picking up their first lacrosse sticks.
80
Conclusion
The purpose of this project was to analyze the history and current state of men’s lacrosse in order to determine the reasons why access to lacrosse has been limited and to consider approaches that could broaden access. The history of lacrosse has been characterized by insularity and exclusion, but ironically, its survival is likely to depend on inclusivity. Lacrosse began as a Native American game, and access to the game was limited to only those within that culture. When it was appropriated by white Canadian settlers and codified as a sport, Native
Americans were systematically excluded from play. The game lost its spiritual and cultural ties, but its exclusive nature remained – but now, the ones who were excluded were the game’s creators and only white upper class players were permitted to participate. This trend continued for decades, and it is only in modern times that efforts have been made to reverse this pattern and welcome diverse groups to the game of lacrosse. The barriers to participation are significant but not insurmountable. Geographically, the game is spreading beyond the traditional hotbeds of lacrosse to the rest of the country. Financially, there are more programs that provide underprivileged areas with funding and equipment to start lacrosse programs. Demographically, there are increasing numbers of high profile African
American players, and even a new all-black college lacrosse team.
While these are all hopeful signs of significant progress, lacrosse still has a long way to go to shed its image – and its reality – as a sport of wealthy white males.
Geographically, lacrosse is still mostly played in wealthy suburban areas even 81 though those areas are no longer as concentrated in New England and the Mid-
Atlantic States. Financially, the grants available for underprivileged lacrosse programs are not plentiful enough to meet the demand. Demographically, the sport still needs to do more to attract racial and ethnic minorities. Negative publicity, as in the Duke lacrosse rape case, slow that progress. Positive publicity, like that surrounding the establishment of the Hampton University lacrosse team, allow for a step in the right direction.
Ultimately, the goal is for lacrosse to be representative of the America of today and tomorrow – a game played across the country, in wealthy and poor areas, by a racially and ethnically diverse group of players. It is also important not to lose sight of the origin of the game as a Native American tradition. The Iroquois National
Team website says it best: “Before each game, players are reminded of the reason for their participation. Lacrosse is played for the enjoyment of OUR CREATOR.
Lacrosse should not be played for money, fame, or personal gain; you should be humble and of a good mind when you take your lacrosse stick in hand.”139
139 Chief Paul Waterman, “The Story of Lacrosse,” trans. Denise Waterman, Iroquois Nationals, http://iroquoisnationals.org/the-iroquois/the-story-of-lacrosse/, accessed May 3, 2016. 82
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Appendix
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